Roads
by JustAnotherPseudonym
Summary: Kim stumbles out of a bar and straight into a new life right when she couldn't stand living her old one anymore. AU Kigo-ish
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "Kim Possible" belongs to Disney that includes all the characters related to the show and so on and so forth.

Rating: M because I don't like dealing with ratings and I'm sure this story will rate an M eventually.

Pairing: I'll never tell?

Summary: Kim stumbles out of a bar straight into a new life right when she couldn't stand living her old one anymore.

Chapter 1

They stood looking at each other, almost like they had never seen each other before. They suddenly forgot their own names, forgot about the people that meant so much to them and to the successful continuation of the lives they had built up. They forgot about the hours they spent fighting and the days they spent dreading the next time they would be forced to play the game that was their own creation.

From this moment, they were no longer a hero and no longer a villain. From this moment, they had become something else entirely, they had matured and evolved past the self-restraint that kept their lives apart. So, from this moment they were starting all over again. It had been forced upon them, and no amount of planning could change it now.

It had all started out simple enough. In an act as cliché as pointing out a cliché, it begin in a dark alley on a full moon in the depths of a star filled night. The superstitious would say that it was inevitable since all the signs for the extraordinary were present and the cynics would even concede that perhaps Kim Possible should have damn well known better.

Another mission had ended and the hero had come out victorious, again. She had botched another evil-doers nefarious plans and so on and so forth...all hail the great Kim Possible. She had never quite imagined that life full of adventure would become so damn boring. Facing almost certain death day in and day out was mundane.

Perhaps, that was why she had begun to frequent some of the most dangerous places in the dirty underground of humanity. She went to the places that still understood the meaning of good old fashioned brutality and life fulfilling chaos. She went to the places that no one would dare even joke about her going to. She walked through the doors like she belonged, and no one concerned themselves with her presence. None of the other patrons tried to bring up their personal grudges with her heroism, or tried to voice their contentions with her showing up to their refuge.

If Kim Possible wanted to escape her life by having a few drinks in a bar then who were they to protest. Everyone there mostly wanted a drink and an escape from life as they knew it. Many people had walked through the doors Kim walked through looking perhaps to somehow stop tomorrow from ever happening. No one had quite been successful at that yet, but a lot just kept on trying one drink at a time.

It had been six months to the day since Kim had started going to this particular bar, with it's dark lighting, peeling wallpaper, and dull mahogany wood. It was her twenty-second birthday and she had been called away from her party so that she could save the world. Her party was still waiting for her glorious return and she had decided she rather go out and have some alcohol instead. She wouldn't drink enough to get drunk; she just wanted to drink enough to help her get through the rest of a party she had begged her family and friends to bypass.

She had her drinks, thanked her bartender and then threw a full bills on the table. She got up from her seat on the deceptively comfortable barstool and then walked out of the place smelling like smoke, liquor, and vomit. She looked up at the sky, silently noticing the full moon and then blindly chose a direction in which to walk.

She stumbled once, but quickly found her balance again. She kept on walking unafraid of her surroundings, knowing full well that she was Kim Possible and she could gosh well do anything that she wanted. She just forgot that she couldn't do gosh well anything while she was mostly drunk and only partly sober.

The dark alley she stumbled down, the full moon lighting up the night, the stars drawing out a change in fate, all added up to Kim Possible being attacked against an enemy stronger than she could handle, and she turned into a different creature entirely. Life became a lot less mundane.

"What the fuck!"

Kim clumsily fell out of the arms that had caught and prevented her from falling down onto the wet cemented ground. "Sh..Shego?" She stumbled over the single name, her mouth unable to formulate the proper syllables that added up to her nemesis' name.

"What are you doing out here, Kimmie?" The super-powered woman asked the hero, making no move to help Kim up from the ground.

Kim only rolled over so that her face was no longer facing the ground, and began laughing as if she had finally realized that Ron Stoppable was the only comic relief to her life's story.

Shego tilted her head slightly, and raised her left brow. "You drunk, Kimmie?"

"Yeah," Kim stopped laughing. She slowly sat up, but didn't bother to try and stand. "Hey, Sh...Shego did you know that it's my birthday?"

"And here I completely forgot to bring you a present to your exclusive birthday party in a back alley."

"S'okay," Kim began rubbing at her face. "I don't think you're supposed to buy me a present."

Shego sighed. "You've finally cracked haven't ya, Princess?"

Kim shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think I want to be a hero anymore," she slurred. "I don't wanna..." Her words trailed off, her brain unable to finish the thoughts that plagued her in her darkest moments.

Shego shook her head, but bent down so that she could look Kim in the eyes. "I understand."

Kim blinked a few times, trying to clear up the blurry edges of the woman that was kneeling in front of her. "Be my friend? 'Cause I don't think I have any that know me anymore."

"Come on," Shego reached out and took hold of Kim's right arm. She slowly helped the younger woman stand, and then let Kim lean on her for balance. She led Kim out of the alley and away from the bar that had been witness to Kim's silent confessions into a few shots of vodka.

They walked side by side until they reached the small hideout Shego had been occupying while she took some time away from her employer. Kim immediately staggered to Shego's bed and then fell down onto it. She didn't bother with the covers and didn't even bother with removing her shoes. All she wanted to do was to sleep so that she could forget that another year of her life had passed without much say from her on how it was going to go.

Shego watched Kim's drunken sleep. She didn't bother to remove any of Kim's clothes and saw no real need to see that Kim was any more comfortable than she already appeared to be. There wasn't quite anything like a alcohol induced sleep. It seemed so much more peaceful than the kind of sleep that Shego was sure Kim was getting without the outside stimulus.

It was dawn before Kim started to stir, and crawl slowly towards wakefulness. First her left eye opened, quickly followed by the right. She didn't recognize where she was and was almost positive that she had never returned to the party being held in her honor. She remembered saving the world from ultimate doom, and then briefly recalled entering a bar where everybody did really know her name. Her memory was clouded and fuzzy beyond that, but she hadn't been so drunk as to have completely forgotten that Shego had been her brief confidant in a drunken confession.

She swung her legs off of the bed, and slowly sat up. She futilely tried to brush off some of the wrinkles in her clothes as she stood, but there was nothing she could do to clean up her appearance; she looked like a person who had just woken up from a drunken night. She couldn't brush off the facts.

"You're finally awake," Shego called out to her guest from the doorway to the bathroom. "I wasn't sure how long you were going to take up all the room on my bed."

There were so many questions Kim could have asked of her archenemy in that moment, so many questions that many in her place probably would have asked, but Kim didn't bother to ask anything. There were no questions that existed that she didn't already know the answers to. Shego had told Kim that she understood, that much of the night Kim remembered. Shego had looked her in the eye and without a hint of sarcasm, malice, or judgment had simply let Kim know that she understood everything Kim felt.

"Okay," Shego pushed herself off of the door frame she was leaning against. "So, you can stay here as long as you want, but you better get a fucking job because there's no way that I'm supporting your unemployed ass."

It had taken most of the time Shego had been watching Kim sleep for her to figure out what she was going to do with Kim once the woman woke up. It had taken the rest of that time for her to talk herself into actually saying the words. She knew well enough that she was putting herself out for a big dose of hurt in the long run. People didn't simply just become Kim Possible's accessory to running away from life, but Shego had always had a bit of a soft spot for the redhead and she couldn't quite talk herself into letting Kim deal with all this on her own.

Kim smiled. "Are you saying I can't do what you do?" She asked semi-seriously.

"Start crawling before you start walking, Kimmie," Shego advised, her tone not as playful as Kim's had been. "It'll take a lot longer than one drunken night for you to decide what it is you really want."

And that's when the moment happened. That's when everything really changed. That's when they stood looking at each other, almost like they had never seen each other before. They suddenly forgot their own names, forgot about the people that meant so much to them and to the successful continuation of the lives they had built up. They forgot about the hours they spent fighting and the days they spent dreading the next time they would be forced to play the game that was their own creation.

From this moment, they were no longer a hero and no longer a villain. From this moment, they had become something else entirely, they had matured and evolved past the self-restraint that kept their lives apart. So, from this moment they were starting all over again. It had been forced upon them because Kim had stumbled right into Shego and neither of them could back away. Neither of them had to strength to fend of the attacks to their hearts that was now being waged.

"Thank you," Kim whispered, lacking the words to say anything more.

"Yeah," Shego whispered back. "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: "Kim Possible" belongs to Disney that includes all the characters related to the show and so on and so forth. In conclusion, I don't own them.**

**Chapter 2**

It hadn't taken long for Kim to find a job. Her name opened a few more doors for her than were often opened for anyone who hadn't spent a good portion of their life being a hero. Kim didn't take any of those easy-to-come-by jobs, though. She didn't want to work for anyone who knew all that she had been. Instead, she took a job offered to her by an old mechanic who needed help in the garage he had owned and operated for the last thirty years. He had never heard of Kim Possible and had loose theories about the government projecting hidden messages that controlled the brain through television screens.

The last time he had watched any television Reagan was in office and the wall separating East from West Germany had not yet been knocked down. He lived in a different world, happily apart from the mainstream that surrounded him, content with fixing broken down cars. He hired Kim because she reminded him of his daughter that never called him anymore, and in a wave of sentimentalism decided he wouldn't mind building up a relationship with someone that reminded him of family.

Kim wasn't quite as proficient with automobile repair as was required for the job, but Old Paul didn't mind teaching her about the things she didn't yet know. It fed into his need to relive the good days of his time as a father and let Kim be around someone who didn't care at all who she had been. She worked with Old Paul from eight in the morning until six in the afternoon working for the hourly wage of ten dollars.

It wasn't a gloriously extravagant life, but it was one that she had chosen and that made a lot of difference in her mind. She didn't really care whether she was earning a fortune or not. Shego provided more for their cost of living than she had initially indicated that she would. Working as a thief had certain monetary benefits that Kim couldn't duplicate in an hourly job with a small time mechanic.

Still, every night Kim made her way back to the apartment she shared with Shego content with the life she was making for herself. It had been a particularly long day at work, however with Old Paul leaving her in charge of doing all the oil changes by herself for the day. Since it was nearing the holiday weekend everyone and their cousin was bringing in their vehicle for maintenance before they took it out on a long road trip.

Kim walked into the new place she called home, and then fell onto the black leather couch in the living room, happy that her roommate wasn't around since Shego would have surely yelled at her for being on the furniture without cleaning herself up first. Kim had learned early on that Shego had a thing about cleanliness that she wouldn't have fully expected from the thief. She had expected Shego to be controlling, which she was, but she hadn't quite expected the plasma yielder to threaten her with a severe burn if she ever found a hint of muck on their furniture.

As was with most cases, however, what Shego didn't know about wouldn't hurt her and currently Shego was out and Kim was certain she'd get a chance to clean up before her roommate returned. She had no idea where it was Shego had gone to, and quite truthfully she felt no desire to know. Shego didn't offer details and Kim didn't ask for them. So, when Kim saw some report on the news that a museum had lost it's most precious painting or a research lab had lost its latest invention, Kim didn't ever assume it was Shego who had stolen the items even though she was almost certain that they now had a genuine Vincent Van Gogh painting hanging in their hallway.

There were certain things that she needed to accept while living with Shego, and it didn't take as much effort to accept them as she would have guessed it would. Sometimes, Kim would worry that Shego would get caught and that perhaps she might never hear from the other woman again, but she didn't spend too much time dwelling on the what-ifs. Shego hadn't failed to come home yet, and Kim knew that since she wasn't the one going after Shego that the thief had a lot lower chance of being caught.

So, with only a small amount of concern blocked away in the far reaches of her brain, Kim laid her head down and closed her eyes. She felt dirty from work, but not dirty enough to get up and do anything about it. It didn't take long for her to settle into her fatigue and fall asleep. She was having an awkward dream about candy canes and elves when the ringing phone forced her to exit her dreamworld where she had finally managed to wrestle a piece of candy from one of the elves.

Blindly, her hand reached out and somehow made solid contact with the ringing phone. She brought the black cordless device to her face, forcing her eyes open so that she could read the number on the caller ID. Upon recognition of the phone number being displayed, she groaned and debated for two more rings whether or not she wanted to bother answering it.

"What is it, Wade?" Decision made, Kim maneuvered herself into a sitting position on the couch she had so peacefully been sleeping on.

"I know you said you didn't want to be bothered with missions anymore, Kim but I thought you might want to know about this one." Wade rushed out his words, not wanting to be interrupted or hung up on before he finished what he had been asked to convey.

Kim laughed humorlessly. "Okay then, tell me the sitch."

"Shego and Drakken are trying to--"

"Wade," Kim interrupted. "You should just go ahead and call someone else."

"But Kim, it's Shego and Drakken," the young man practically whined. "You always stop Drakken."

"Call someone else," Kim repeated. "I can't go out on a mission every time you call, Wade. It kind of defeats the purpose of me being on hiatus."

"But Drakken is trying to--"

"Wade, no," Kim stood up, no longer feeling like resting. "Get someone else to take care of it."

"Fine," Wade sighed.

"Is there something else you needed?" Kim asked after Wade didn't immediately fill up the silence with more of his protests. She was doing her best to hide the frustration that had built up inside of her since she had been woken up by the ringing phone. Wade didn't deserve to be on the losing end of her anger. He was only trying to do what he thought was the best for her, and what he thought was best for everyone else in the world.

"No," Wade replied softly. "But your parents are still asking me for your address."

"No one really understands the meaning of 'hiatus' do they?" Kim asked more to herself than to Wade. It had only been two weeks since she had moved in with Shego and no one quite seemed to support her decision. Everyone wanted to know if something had been done to her or if somehow she had had a brain transplant without anyone knowing about it. They couldn't simply believe that Kim Possible would choose to take a break away from her life just so that she could figure some stuff out.

Kim Possible was supposed to have everything figured out already. She had made her decisions early on in life, and while they had been questioned while being made, once Kim had whole-heartedly gone out to do what she thought was her life's purpose no one tried to stop her. Kim had stubbornly chased her ambitions and everyone had fallen in behind her decisions. Now that Kim wanted to change what she had so stubbornly pursued, everyone didn't quite know how to accept it. Something had to be wrong if Kim was giving up on her dreams.

"It's not that, Kim. Everyone just wants to understand what's going on with you," Wade eventually decided to answer the question he knew wasn't really being posed to him. "People are worried. I'm worried."

"It's no big," Kim forced the words out of her, trying to capture the same enthusiasm she normally used when staving off Wade's fears. "All I need is a little time; then I'll be good to take care of Drakken and Shego and anyone else who needs taking care of."

"Okay, Kim." Wade saw no point in continuing the conversation. Kim wasn't a very good liar and he didn't particularly feel the need to be lied to by one of his best friends anymore. "I'll talk to you later."

"Later, Wade," Kim's false enthusiasm filtered through the phone and there was nothing she could do to call it back. She didn't want to worry Wade or anyone else, but she knew that everyone would worry and eventually everyone would catch onto the fact that she wasn't going to go back to them.

Shego had told her to give it time. It was the plasma wielder's idea for Kim to go on hiatus before she told everyone that she was retiring. It was all part of the crawling before she could walk deal, and Kim was willing to take Shego's advice. Shego had a certain amount of experience with walking away from heroism that Kim didn't.

Kim stared at the phone after she had pressed the button to disconnect the call. She let her doubt have free reign while she filtered the conversation through her mind. There was a part of her that knew she should have taken Wade up on the mission he had tried to offer her. People could get hurt because she wasn't going to be out there to save them, and two weeks of being away from the fight hadn't yet taught her how to deal with the guilt.

Suddenly, Kim wasn't quite as tired as she had been. Her heart had started pumping adrenaline through her system and she was feeling the beginnings of an awkward anxiety building inside of her. She felt like shaking her hands out, in an effort to get rid of some of the jitters that began taking over her entire being.

She took a look around the apartment, not immediately seeing anything that would quell the pressures building inside of her. Unable to calm herself, she made her way for her bedroom. She gathered up a few clothes from the floor and then hurried into the bathroom where she didn't even bother to close to door before jumped into the shower. She cleaned off her body, not quite worried with the temperature of the water.

When she felt clean enough, she turned off the water and then dried off her body. She put on the clothes she had grabbed from the floor, and without bothering to do anything else left the apartment. The anxiety inside of her had not lessened any, and in all honesty she didn't really want it to. It was her fuel, it was let her save the world so many times. It's what fought away her fear when she was handed out odds even the riskiest of gambler's wouldn't bet on.

Kim walked away from her apartment building and straight to the bad part of town. She walked the streets until she came upon a fight she knew she wouldn't have a problem winning. A man was beating up another, and Kim didn't ask for explanations before she stepped in.

The fight didn't last long, and it wasn't even worth Kim's effort, but it helped a little to ease the adrenaline that flooded through her body. She even managed to help someone out in the process, so it was all worthwhile.

"Damn," the man she had saved muttered as he saw his attacker bleeding on the ground. "You're pretty good at that."

Kim shrugged. "Whatever."

"You ever think of ya know, fighting in the ring?" He asked, knowing that he couldn't pass up the opportunity that had just fallen in front of him.

Kim stopped walking away. "What ring?"

"Ya know, the fighting ring they got going on over on 34th street inside of the old factory building. They fight there every Wednesday." The young man helpfully supplied. "That's just where I was coming from."

"Is that also why you were being beat up?" Kim began walking again.

The man hurried after her. "Yeah," he chuckled. "I sort of couldn't pay off on a bet." He ran around Kim so that he was in front of her. "But, I'm sure if you went in the ring and I happened to place a bet in your favor then I'd be able to pay off a whole lot of my debts."

"No, thank you." Kim walked around the young man. "I don't fight for money."

"Okay, okay," he rushed out and hurried to catch up with the woman he saw as his new salvation. "It's a new concept for you and you gotta think it through. I understand."

"There's no thinking," Kim shook her head. "I'm not doing it."

"I'll give you time to think about it then," he fell in step with Kim. "I'm Nathan by the way. And your name is...?"

"Good night, Nathan," Kim looked up at some conveniently placed scaffolding. She jumped up to catch hold of the pieces of metal, and then swung herself up.

Nathan watched Kim swing herself up past his line of vision and then called out, "Good night, and I'll see you next Wednesday!" He stood looking up at the darkened sky for a few more moments until he remembered that there were people out looking to do some serious bodily harm to his person. He looked around and then took off running towards the shadows so that he couldn't be seen.

Kim jumped around from one building to the next for the rest of the night. She stopped a couple of muggings, a few robberies, and a bout or two of domestic violence. It wasn't the kinds of things she was used to dealing with, but she didn't mind the change. When she walked back into her apartment, her roommate was sitting in the living room flipping through the television channels looking more bored than anything.

"How was your day?" Kim asked as she fell onto the couch next to Shego.

"Drakken's an idiot," Shego offered. "I think I'm going to kill him tomorrow." This wasn't the first time Shego had made this particular threat. "How was your day?" Shego turned off the television and focused her attention on Kim. "I found muck on the leather when I sat down."

"Really?" Kim asked surprised. "I have no idea how it got there."

"Of course you don't, Princess." Shego gave a false smile. "So, besides messing up the furniture how'd things go for you today?"

Shego wasn't a particularly talkative or caring person as a rule, but she knew Kim needed someone to talk to about the changes she was going through, and Shego hadn't yet managed to harden up the soft spot she had for the younger woman. She knew that things would have gone a lot better for her back in the day if she had just bothered to talk to someone about how much she hated working with her brothers.

"Old Paul had me working on most of the cars by myself today while he took a nap in his office." Kim started to pull her feet up onto the couch so that she could sit cross legged, but before the action was complete Shego slapped at her legs looking pointedly at Kim's shoes. Kim huffed but reached down and started untying her shoelaces. "I came home," Kim continued, "had a dream about beating up elves for candy and then Wade called me so that I could go out and stop you from doing whatever, I refused, and then I went out."

"What did you go out to do, Pumpkin?" Shego instinctively knew which questions to ask. The instinct came from experience since she used to tell her brothers that she had 'been out', when she had been doing something she thought they wouldn't approve of.

Kim kicked off her shoes, then curled up her legs. "I was just walking around."

"Okay," Shego nodded and then she stood up. She stretched out her sore muscles and then focused her attention back to her roommate. "Kimmie, the only way I can help is if you tell me what's going on."

"I know," Kim whispered.

Shego didn't reply. She walked away and went to her bedroom. She wasn't sure what else she could say to get Kim to talk to her. She was fully aware that neither of them were acting quite the way they normally acted around each other only a couple weeks prior, but she realized there was no way to change things back for them now. When Kim had fallen into her arms and Shego didn't think twice about catching the younger woman, she unconsciously accepted responsibility for helping Kim through whatever the hero thought she had to go through alone.

Kim watched Shego walk away, not quite sure why she hadn't confessed to the other woman what it was she had been doing throughout the night. She knew that Shego was surprisingly an easy person to talk to, at least since they had begun living together Shego had become an easy person to talk to. It was as if neither of their pasts mattered anymore. When they looked at each other and everything about them changed, Kim saw no reason to question it.

Yet, despite all that she now knew about her roommate, she still felt the need to hold back just a little. She didn't want anyone to tell her that what she was doing was wrong, and she certainly didn't want to risk hearing that from Shego. She was so tired of feeling like everything about her was wrong and didn't want it reinforced by the only person who was willing to help her figure out what was going on inside of her.

Pushing all the negative thoughts aside, Kim reached out and picked up the remote Shego had recently set aside. She turned back on the television and started flipping through the channels like her roommate had been doing when Kim walked through the door. She continued scrolling through the channels until she had to fight with her eyes to keep them open. Her body then reminded her that she had had a very long and physically demanding day.

Kim turned off the television and then picked herself up off of the soft leather she had been resting on. Her bare feet shuffled against the wooden floors until she was standing outside of Shego's closed bedroom door. Without thinking to much about it, she opened the door without bothering to announce her presence. She made her way over to Shego's bed and then fell down onto it.

Shego silently watched Kim crawl into the covers. Kim hadn't been able to sleep alone comfortably for a long time, and two weeks with Shego hadn't yet managed to change that. Kim didn't ask if she could share Shego's bed and Shego never offered, but neither of them fought against it. It was just another small part of how their lives and how they interacted with each other had completely changed, and how they weren't going to bother fighting it.

"Night, Kimmie." Shego whispered before she closed her eyes and did her best to fall back asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: "Kim Possible" belongs to Disney that includes all the characters related to the show and so on and so forth. In conclusion, I don't own them.**

**Chapter 3**

Kim walked into the apartment after a long day of working with Old Paul. She was finally adjusting to her daily work schedule, so wasn't as tired from working in the garage as she had been before. Her energy was back up and she didn't feel like staying inside of an empty apartment alone, because once again Shego was out doing something that Kim hadn't bothered to ask about and Shego hadn't bothered to tell her about.

It hardly mattered to Kim at all that yesterday's midday news had reported that a research lab in Macau was broken into and a highly volatile experimental fuel had been taken. While, in unrelated news a Dior Boutique in Macau had also been robbed and was now short on a ring they called a "Précieuse Trèfle" that had been described as an 18K white gold, platinum, with diamonds, emeralds and yellow sapphires estimated worth more than Kim would ever make working at Old Paul's garage. It was a beautiful ring, one Kim was sure she hadn't gotten a chance to see in person on Shego's index finger when Shego had decided to treat Kim to dinner at a five star restaurant the previous night.

Kim made her way through the apartment, past the Van Gogh painting hanging in the hallway, straight to her bedroom. She grabbed a few articles of clothing from her closet and then made her way to the bathroom. She showered carefully, cleaning off the remnants of Old Paul's Garage happy to be rid of the grease and oil that had accumulated on her body throughout the day.

Once clean, Kim dried herself off, put on her clothes and didn't even bother to answer the ringing phone before she left the apartment. Wade had been consistently calling her every day with a new mission he thought she wouldn't want to pass up on. He hadn't managed to offer her a mission yet that meant anything to her. He had often tried to goad her into action by bringing up something Shego was doing, but Kim let his words lose any real meaning.

No one knew that she was living with Shego, and as far as Kim was concerned no one needed to know who she was living with because it wasn't anybody else's business. No one even knew where it was she was living these days. Wade had attempted to figure it out by tracing the phone number she had given him, but Shego wasn't so stupid as to let her phone be traceable. Kim asked Wade to respect her privacy and Wade forced himself to honor her wishes, no matter how wrong he thought they were.

Kim didn't want to be found, so he wouldn't try and find her. He had convinced himself that if Kim was given enough space, then eventually she would come back to her family, back to her friends, and back to her home. The only reason why he kept on calling her was because he wanted to make sure that Kim was still alive. It was his immaturity that made him offer Kim missions he knew she would refuse. His youth couldn't quite let him believe that his hero was really giving up.

"Another time, Wade," Kim called out as she locked the apartment door behind her.

She went straight to the streets and didn't even bother to stop and think when she turned to walk down 34th street. The anxiety that had built up inside of her hadn't ever really mellowed and no amount of talking to Shego had given her any release. Her anxiety had turned into frustration and the frustration was manifesting into anger.

When she walked into the abandoned factory building, a fight already in progress, she didn't even wonder if what she was doing was wrong. Nathan had spotted her as soon as she walked through the doors and he walked right up to her and didn't hesitate to explain to her how she could register to get inside of the ring.

"So, all you have to do is kick some ass, ya know?" Nathan needlessly informed Kim as he was standing with her while she was waiting to be called for her turn to fight. "The people around here don't care for a lot of the fancy stuff, ya know. They just want to see a lot of blood and if you could manage to have it so that your opponent leaves here on a stretcher, all the better, ya understand."

Kim turned her attention away from the fight happening in front of her to the rambling man next to her. "I'm not doing that. I don't want to kill anyone."

"Whoa," Nathan held up his hands trying to physically fend off Kim's words. "Who said anything about killing? Just mess 'em up good, ya know." He dropped his hands and then immediately stuffed them into the front pockets of his dark jeans.

Kim looked over the man standing next to her, only now wondering what she was really doing standing next to him in this place, where fighting was a form of illegal entertainment. She wondered what brought Nathan here. He didn't look like a fighter. He wasn't much taller than her, and she could swear that the muscles on her arms were more defined than his. He wore dark rimmed glasses that were being held together by a piece of scotch tape that connected the two pieces to make a whole. He just didn't look like the type that would come out to make a bet that one human being could beat up on another. He looked like a familiar face, like any other, nothing too extraordinary about him.

"I get half of whatever you win off of me tonight, Nathan." Kim looked away from Nathan's dark brown eyes back to the faceless mass of people cheering on the fighters in front of her.

"There's already a prize for the winner. Why you gotta cut into my winnings?" If anything, he added silently to himself, the redhead owed him part of her winnings since he let her know about the place.

"That way you don't bet it all away," Kim didn't bother to look at him as she answered.

"What's it matter to you?" Nathan wasn't looking for someone to help him with anything. He was a grown man and he was fully capable of taking care of himself.

"You need new glasses, you haven't shaved in a few days, and your eyes don't look so great either." Kim finally turned her attention back to Nathan.

Nathan dropped his eyes to the ground and took a long look at his shoes. "Fine." He shrugged. "What does it matter to me, ya know?"

The fight in front of them ended. The loser was being carried off on a stretcher and the crowd was losing control. Those that had won were holding up their money like it somehow managed to get them closer to Heaven, while the ones that had lost were holding their heads down upset that what was supposed to be a 'sure thing' wasn't quite as absolute as they had originally thought.

"Okay, Red, you're up next," Nathan raised his head and looked towards the fighting stage. "Don't let your nerves knock you down."

Kim looked curiously at Nathan, her head tilted slightly. "I'm not nervous."

"Well," One hand fell out of Nathan's pocket and then motioned in the direction of Kim's hands, "you're shaking."

Kim clenched her hands into a tight fist, then looked down at her hands as if she hadn't ever seen them before. She felt disconnected from her body, and this wasn't the first time she had experienced the feeling. The first time she had walked into a bar after a victorious mission, slid into a barstool, ordered a drink and then gulped it down was her original point of disconnect. It was the first time she had given up control, and the first time she realized just how easy it was to do.

She slowly unclenched her fist and stared down at the grooves her fingernails had left in the palm of her hand. She watched as the marks began to fade with an absent stare. She still couldn't recognize her own hand, no matter how much she tried to.

"You should go on up there," Nathan's voice forced itself into her awareness. "Unless you want to forfeit?"

"No," Kim shook her head. "No. I'm going."

She clenched her fists again, and then made her way up to the ring.

"I'm so fucked," Nathan whispered to himself as he saw Kim stumble into the fighting arena. He had for sure thought that she would be his sure thing, but the more he spent time with her he realized that she seemed really spacey and hardly worth his attention. He cursed himself again for not pulling out when he had heard the pseudonym Kim had chosen to use in the arena. "What kind of fighter worth anything goes by Princess?" He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand and then began to avidly pray.

Kim pretended not to notice Nathan's soft cursing. She focused her attention of the man standing in front of her. He was her opponent and she was supposed to beat him up enough so that he had to be carried out of the fight. That's the way things worked in this place.

She didn't throw the first punch. She didn't even bother to throw the second. She dodged all of the man's advances never pressing the various openings he left before her. After twenty minutes of overexertion, Kim's opponent collapsed to the ground and she hadn't even thrown a single punch. She had won the match by default.

Immediately after she was declared the winner, Kim jumped off of the stage and hurried to collect her winnings. The crowd was caught between whether they should be cheering for her or cursing her. They had never seen anyone move quite as fast as she had. They had never seen anyone win a match like she had. But there was no blood; there was no gore. There was no gruesome story to tell about how some Bit of Nothing going by the name of Princess had defeated a man who looked to be almost three times her size. Were they supposed to feel amazed or cheated?

"You're a weird girl, ya know." Nathan confessed as soon as he had caught up with Kim on the street. "You've left an angry mob back there. People want their money back."

"They can ask me for it back."

Kim didn't smile and she didn't sound like she was making a joke, but Nathan laughed anyway. "So, what else have you got planned for us tonight?"

"Us?"

"Well yeah," Nathan didn't let his smile fall from his face. "I'm like the Robin to your Batman now."

Kim stumbled but caught her balance before she fell. "I'm not looking for a sidekick."

"Heroes never look for sidekicks," Nathan shrugged tactically ignoring the fact that Kim had just tripped over her own feet. He was sure that even Batman managed to stumble when people weren't looking. "They just sort of get stuck with them, ya know."

"Look, Nathan," Kim stopped walking, "I think you're a nice guy and all, but I'm really not looking to get stuck with you."

"Yeah well," Nathan scratched at the back of his neck, "maybe I'm the one looking to get stuck with you."

"Go home," Kim softly said.

"Well," Nathan's hand hadn't dropped from the back of his neck yet, "I don't really have one."

Kim shook her head and then started walking again. "No." Shego would not look kindly to her taking in random men from the street.

Nathan didn't say anything else, he just followed his savior around figuring that eventually she'd hit him to get him to leave or would give him a place to stay for the night. He was willing to risk getting hit, especially since he saw the performance Kim had given in the fight. She just wasn't into the violence like some of the others he'd seen come before her.

Eventually, Kim got tired of walking and circles and knew that if she didn't get to bed soon then she'd miss her first day of work with Old Paul. "Fine." She turned to face Nathan who had been steadily following her throughout the night. "I'm just going to let Shego deal with you."

Her harmless stalker grinned, thinking somehow that he had won. He followed her up to her apartment and blindly entered into it. He had hardly gotten past the threshold before he stopped mindlessly following Kim's lead. His eyes fell to the green skinned woman lounging on the black leather sofa in front of him, and he couldn't force his eyes to look away.

"Princess, I thought we had a conversation already about you bringing in strays." Shego casually swung her legs down from the back of the sofa onto the floor.

"Shego, please just get rid of him," Kim said her voice a little strained. "It's been a long night." She quietly told her roommate before she walked away towards Shego's bedroom.

Shego watched Kim's hurried exit, then stood up. "Well." Her attention went to the small pathetic man standing in her apartment. "If you're going to stay here then you're sleeping on the couch. You take anything and I'll kill you."

"Yes ma'am," Nathan managed to stutter through the fear he felt coursing through him. He was sure that Kim wasn't going to hurt him, but he had no confidence whatsoever that the woman standing in front of him now wouldn't kill him and hide away his body so that he'd never be found.

"The bathroom is the second door on the right. Clean yourself up before you even think about putting your dirty flesh on my furniture."

"Of course."

"We'll talk in the morning," Shego turned away from Nathan who hadn't managed to move since he stepped foot into the apartment. She followed the same path Kim had taken to the bedroom. Once she went inside, she saw Kim had already readied for bed and was lying down looking up at her hands as if they were some alien object.

Shego quietly closed the bedroom door, then made her way to the bed and sat down upon it as close as she could to Kim without being atop the younger woman.

"They look so much different," Kim let Shego's presence capture her attention.

Shego reached out and encased Kim's hands in her own. They didn't look much different to her, but she knew that Kim wasn't talking solely about their physical appearance. "They'll never look the same to you again, Kimmie." Shego ran her thumbs gently across the backs of Kim's hands. "That's what happens when you kill someone."

They hadn't talked about it yet. Neither of them had been brave enough to bring it up, but Shego was tired of waiting to see what condition Kim would show up in when she finally returned from running around at night. So far, Kim had come back physically intact but Shego wouldn't put up with Kim bringing home anymore Nathans.

"I did the right thing," Kim told herself, but no matter how often she repeated it she still wasn't sure whether she believed it or not.

"I'm not saying you didn't."

It wasn't by a complete fluke that Kim had stumbled into Shego in that dark alley. Shego had been out looking for the young heroine, because she could tell that Kim was slowly breaking down. That's why Kim didn't want a birthday party. That's why she sought out bars that fed off of the despair of humankind. That's why she was bored with her life, thinking that on some level she really didn't deserve it.

Kim's life had taken a turn and she hadn't known how to deal with it. Everyone around her had said that she had done good. She had saved people and that's all that mattered. They moved on from it like nothing had ever happened and Kim had done her best to move on with them. Fast forward to six months later, and she was stumbling out of a bar clueless as to where she was headed and clueless as to whom she might run into.

"Then why does it always hurt?" Kim clenched her fingers around Shego's hands. "Why doesn't the anger just go away?"

All Shego could say was that it would take time, but she knew that kind of answer meant very little. It had meant little to her when she had been told that after she had killed for the first time, and her anger hadn't managed to disappear yet. She had made choices based on that anger that she wasn't proud of, but couldn't change anything now and Kim would have to learn that she couldn't change anything either.

"What did you do tonight, Kimmie?"

"I went out thinking I was going to beat someone up," Kim didn't think twice about admitting the truth. "Turned out that I couldn't even throw a single punch."

Shego didn't ask the question so that she could judge the younger woman. She simply asked because she wanted to know what was going on so that she could step in and help if she needed to. If Kim wanted to beat someone up in a fight they were stupid enough to engage in, then that was up to Kim; she was a big girl and could make her own choices. Shego just didn't want to see Kim get hurt. She needed to know the things Kim wouldn't tell her, and that's the only reason she had let Nathan stay the night. He could tell her what Kim was too afraid to confess.

"That's not a bad thing," Shego let go of one of Kim's hands, so that she could reach out and wipe away a few of Kim's tears.

Kim pulled the hand Shego still held onto out of the other woman's grip. "I'm tired."

"Then get some sleep." Shego removed herself from the bed and began to get ready for the night. She wasn't going to push Kim into anything. Kim was doing better already, even if she didn't realize it. Just by getting away from the losers she surrounded herself with, she had taken a big step towards gaining back the control she had thought she lost. At least now, Shego admitted, Kim could act like something extreme had actually happened. She didn't have to act like it was 'no big' like the morons that surrounded her expected from the girl that could do anything.

It didn't take long before Shego slid back into the bed she was now sharing with Kim. She kept to her side of the bed, not wanting to trespass into the space Kim needed. So, she was only slightly surprised when Kim slid over and removed any of the space that had been between them. Kim's arm went across her body and Kim held onto Shego as if she had just found a life preserver just when she was beginning to drown.


End file.
